The Scarlet Letter Chapters 20 to 24

Warm UP: Cite specific quotes or passages when answering the following questions: What is your genuine reaction to the novel’s conclusion?What is your genuine reaction to the novel’s conclusion? Did it end as you think it should have? What would you change?Did it end as you think it should have? What would you change? What aspects did you find worthwhile?What aspects did you find worthwhile? What do you think Hawthorne could/should have omitted?What do you think Hawthorne could/should have omitted? What themes does Hawthorne make evident?What themes does Hawthorne make evident?

20. “Minister in a Maze”… 20. “Minister in a Maze”… Explore the significance, including irony, of the statement below. Consider the views of Transcendentalists, Romantics and Puritans in your response.Explore the significance, including irony, of the statement below. Consider the views of Transcendentalists, Romantics and Puritans in your response. “Another man had returned out of the forest; a wiser one; with a knowledge of hidden mysteries which the simplicity of the former never could have reached. A bitter kind of knowledge that!” (Hawthorne 201)

20. “Minister in a Maze”… 20. “Minister in a Maze”… Basic: Describe the urges that Dimmesdale has after his meeting with Hester in the forest.Basic: Describe the urges that Dimmesdale has after his meeting with Hester in the forest. Higher Level: What themes does Hawthorne make evident through these urges?Higher Level: What themes does Hawthorne make evident through these urges? Highest Level: Analyze those themes through a psychological lense. Consider “YGB” in your analysis.Highest Level: Analyze those themes through a psychological lense. Consider “YGB” in your analysis.

21. “The N.E. Holiday” “[T]he Puritans compressed whatever mirth and public joy they deemed allowable to human infirmity; thereby so far dispelling the customary cloud, that, for the space of a single holiday, they appeared scarcely more grave than most other communities at a period of general affliction.” (Hawthorne 216) 4 th page of 21 What is Hawthorne saying about the level of joviality occurring at this Puritan festival?

21. “The N.E. Holiday” Basic: What are the major activities the occur during the Election Day celebration? (Hawthorne ) Higher Level: What do they indicate about the Puritan people? Highest Level: How do they foreshadow the concluding action of the novel?

21. “The N.E. Holiday” What is the significance of the Native Americans and Mariners being described attending the Election Day festivities? (218) The picture of human life in the market-place, though its general tint was the sad gray, brown, or black of the English emigrants, was yet enlivened by some diversity of hue. A party of Indians--in their savage finery of curiously embroidered deer-skin robes, wampum-belts, red and yellow ochre, and feathers, and armed with the bow and arrow and stone-headed spear--stood apart, with countenances of inflexible gravity, beyond what even the Puritan aspect could attain. Nor, wild as were these painted barbarians, were they the wildest feature of the scene. This distinction could more justly be claimed by some mariners,

22. “The procession” How does Hester’s impression of Dimmesdale foreshadow the novel’s conclusion? What theme(s) does it make evident? “Her spirit sank with the idea that all must have been a delusion, and that, vividly as she had dreamed it, there could be no real bond betwixt the clergyman and herself. And thus much of woman was there in Hester, that she could scarcely forgive him,--least of all now, when the heavy footstep of their approaching Fate might be heard, nearer, nearer, nearer!--for being able so completely to withdraw himself from their mutual world; while she groped darkly, and stretched forth her cold hands, and found him not.” (Hawthorne 224)

22. “The procession” Basic: How is Dimmesdale’s sermon described? Higher Level: Keeping in mind the question from the previous slide, what is significant about Hester’s vantage point of his speech? Highest Level: Identify specific parallels between Dimmesdale’s sermon and the brook in chapter 16? What is significant about those parallels?

Basic: How is Puritan people’s reaction to Dimmesdale’s sermon described? Higher Level: Identify specific parallels between Dimmesdale’s sermon, the Puritan people’s reaction and the brook in chapter 16? Highest Level: If the forest, Dimmesdale’s speech and the Puritan people maintain these parallels, what theme is Hawthorne revealing through all three? 23. “The Revelation”

Basic: Explore the irony of Dimmesdale’s escaping Chillingworth on the scaffold. Highest Level: What theme is Hawthorne revealing through this escape? 23. “The Revelation”

Explore the ways in which the following quote reinforces Pearl’s role as a living scarlet letter: Pearl kissed his lips. A spell was broken. The great scene of grief, in which the wild infant bore a part, had developed all her sympathies; and as her tears fell upon her father's cheek, they were the pledge that she would grow up amid human joy and sorrow, nor for ever do battle with the world, but be a woman in it. Towards her mother, too, Pearl's errand as a messenger of anguish was all fulfilled. (238) 23. “The Revelation”

Are Dimmesdale’s dying words in line with the novel’s themes or do they contradict them? Explain. “I fear! It may be, that, when we forgot our God,-- when we violated our reverence each for the other's soul,--it was thenceforth vain to hope that we could meet hereafter, in an everlasting and pure reunion. God knows; and He is merciful! He hath proved his mercy, most of all, in my afflictions.” (239) 23. “The Revelation”

How does this quote tie into the psychological analysis of the novel? Is it accurate? Why? Why not? "Be true! Be true! Be true! Show freely to the world, if not your worst, yet some trait whereby the worst may be inferred!" 24. “Conclusion”

Do you agree with Hawthorne’s explanation of love and hate? Use the novel and the real world to support your assertion. “It is a curious subject of observation and inquiry, whether hatred and love be not the same thing at bottom[...]Philosophically considered, therefore, the two passions seem essentially the same, except that one happens to be seen in a celestial radiance, and the other in a dusky and lurid glow.” (242) 24. “Conclusion”

Do you agree with Hester’s decision to return to New England? What is Hawthorne’s purpose in having her return? 24. “Conclusion”